Teaching Award Descriptions

Below are descriptions of the University-wide Teaching Awards presented by the Office of the Provost and the Faculty Center for Ignatian Pedagogy. All will be awarded at the Annual Teaching Awards Ceremony in late April 2025.

St. Ignatius of Loyola Award for Teaching Excellence

This prestigious award is named for Ignatius of Loyola, founder of the Jesuit order and patron saint of our University.

The St. Ignatius Loyola Award for Excellence in Teaching recognizes faculty whose teaching involves a commitment to excellence, raises global awareness, promotes social justice, and educates the whole student. The award honors the faculty member who embodies true excellence in their teaching, including advising and mentoring students, teaching to mission, and actively engaging students in their learning.

Award candidates are asked to submit materials reflecting their work in the following areas. The St. Ignatius Award winner shows distinction in all areas.

Commitment to excellence (or Magis): a commitment to exceeding expectations and striving to innovate and improve, particularly in terms of advising and mentoring, teaching to mission, and actively engaging students in the learning process.
Raises global awareness: an attention to our global context, such that students learn material not only as applied to the classroom environment, but to conditions and circumstances beyond the University.
Promotes social justice: through instruction, challenges injustice, demonstrates the value of diversity and common humanity, and promotes thinking, empathy and actions that defend the right to equitable treatment and opportunity for all people, especially those who are marginalized.
Cura Personalis (a Latin phrase that translates as "Care for the whole person”): demonstrating genuine and holistic care for each student as an individual, forging connections with their students to enhance their learning experience.

The award honors the faculty member who embodies excellence in all aspects of teaching, including advising/mentoring, teaching to mission and engaging students in their learning.

The Provost’s Award for Excellence Teaching First Years

The Provost’s Award for Excellence Teaching First-Years recognizes faculty who contribute to a vibrant Loyola community by building connections and belonging among first-year students while teaching 100-level classes. Exemplary faculty foster cura personalis (care for the whole person) in new students by providing necessary support during their transition to college while challenging them to become fully integrated into the Loyola community.

The Provost's Award winner shows distinction in each of the following areas:

Student engagement: Challenges students to expand their experiences and actively engages them in the learning process.
Development of community: Encourages students to begin their Loyola education in such a way that enhances their own growth and self-awareness, as well as their connection to others in the community.
Cultivation of service: Supports students in identifying their interests, gifts, and a sense of purpose, exploring how to use the knowledge they will gain in the service of humanity.
Cura Personalis (a Latin phrase that translates as "Care for the whole person”): Demonstrates genuine and holistic care for each student as an individual, forging connections with their students to enhance their learning experience.

Kolvenbach Award for Engaged Teaching

This award is named for Peter Hans Kolvenbach, S.J., the 29th Superior General of the Society of Jesus. The Kolvenbach Award for Engaged Teaching recognizes faculty who promote active and collaborative learning through a variety of hands-on, service-learning, and outreach experiences that encourage students to apply classroom material to real life situations. Exemplary faculty support deep student learning through active engagement and learning application in and outside the classroom.

The Kolvenbach Award winner shows distinction in each of the following areas.

Engaged learning: Actively facilitates learning opportunities for Loyola students that bring real world examples and applications into the classroom (e.g. through case examples, guest speakers, service projects, research opportunities, community presentations, etc.).

Active, collaborative approach: Actively involves students in the learning process and reflects on, responds to and adjusts the learning process as it evolves for both the teacher and learners
Outreach beyond the classroom: Facilitates student engagement with community partners that respects and uplifts those partnerships as inherently valuable, reciprocal, and mutually beneficial.
Justice orientation: Motivates and inspires students in critical thinking, empathy and action for the rights, opportunities, and inherent humanity of those who are disadvantaged or oppressed.

Alice B. Hayes Award for Advising and Mentoring

Named for Alice Bourke Hayes, whose career at Loyola University Chicago spanned 27 years, the Alice B. Hayes Award for Advising and Mentoring recognizes faculty who demonstrate a commitment to advising and mentoring students in- and outside the classroom. Exemplary faculty are involved in helping students discover their passions and develop a dedication to life-long learning, as well as guiding students' intellectual, personal, social, and spiritual growth.

The Hayes Award winner demonstrates distinction in all areas.

Mentoring: Maintains on-going contact and communication with students, which (a) demonstrates a commitment to the impact of informal transmission of knowledge and support to students, and (b) is relevant to professional work, career, research, or personal goals and development.
Academic advising: Intentionally guides students' curricular decisions in line with their aspirations and abilities, facilitating student progress and success within their academic program and beyond.
Networking: Actively initiates connections on behalf of students that allow the student to build new relationships while generating professional opportunities to advance students' current and future success.
Cura Personalis (a Latin phrase that translates to "care for the whole person”): Demonstrates genuine and holistic care for each student as an individual, forging connections with their students to enhance their learning experience.

Magis Teaching Award for Part-Time Instructors

In the Jesuit tradition, the Latin word magis means more, or striving for excellence. In April 2021, after an overwhelming demand on the part of students and faculty colleagues to recognize the great teaching of Loyola’s part-time instructors, FCIP gathered a working group of part-time Loyola instructors to create the criteria for such an award. The Magis Teaching Award for Part-time Instructors presents an opportunity to elevate and celebrate the impact of Loyola’s part-time instructors’ unique and mission-critical contributions to Loyola students.

The Magis winner demonstrates distinction in each of the following areas:

Presence: Consistently answers the call to be a teacher-practitioner and role model in their field, demonstrating excellence in their chosen careers outside the classroom and sharing their work and life experiences with their students.
Magis (a Latin word for "more"): Commitment to going ‘above and beyond’ to meet the needs of their students, persevering through obstacles and exceeding expectations to provide a formative and multi-faceted learning experience.
Cura Personalis (a Latin phrase that translates to "care for the whole person"): Demonstrates genuine and holistic care for each student as an individual, forging connections with their students to enhance their learning experience.
Teaching to mission: Consistently embodies the Jesuit ideals of mission, community and service through their course structure, facilitation and engagement with students and the community.